AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
Faith Hedgepeth was a UNC sophomore when she was killed on Sept. 7, 2012. Her murder was unsolved until Sept. 16, 2021, when Chapel Hill police made an arrest in her case. The murder trial begins Sept. 28, 2026. Here’s ongoing coverage about Hedgepeth and the case.
Read more Last NC Supreme Court race led to clash over votes. Now another seat is up for grabs
For 14 years, Karena Rosario’s account of the final hours of Faith Hedgepeth’s life has been picked apart by police, defense attorneys and the public.
On Wednesday, Hedgepeth’s friend and roommate walked to the witness stand, tears already falling, and publicly told her story for the first time.
Rosario, now 34, was one of the last people known to have seen Hedgepeth alive early Sept. 7, 2012. She found the 19-year-old’s body around 11 a.m. and called 911.
Investigators interviewed Rosario repeatedly, and last year, defense attorneys for Miguel Salguero Olivares began raising questions in court filings about whether Rosario could have been in the apartment when Hedgepeth was killed.
Prosecutors called those suggestions misleading and successfully sought to limit evidence and defense attorneys’ arguments pointing to Rosario as responsible. Prosecutors have said they do not believe she was involved in Hedgepeth’s killing.
In her opening statement, Durham County Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca said Salguero Olivares broke into the apartment, beat Hedgepeth with a glass rum bottle, raped her and left her to die. She said Salguero Olivares had relatives who lived nearby, but that he didn’t know Hedgepeth or Rosario.
Police arrested Salguero Olivares nine years after the killing, saying DNA linked him to evidence found on Hedgepeth and other items in the apartment.
Salguero Olivares, who has no significant criminal history, has pleaded not guilty to murder and rape and has said he did not know Hedgepeth.
In September 2012, Rosario lived in a one-bedroom apartment on Old Chapel Hill Road. Hedgepeth had moved in about a month earlier, Rosario testified.
“Initially it felt like a never-ending sleepover,” Rosario said. The two met their freshman year at UNC and became close friends.
The night before Hedgepeth’s death, they studied at the library, returned home to change and then went to The Thrill, a now-closed nightclub on Rosemary Street.
Rosario testified that she was struggling emotionally at the time. She had ended an abusive relationship and obtained a restraining order against her former boyfriend. She was also struggling in another relationship.
That night, she encountered both a relative of her former boyfriend and the man with whom she was having difficulties. She drank heavily and became increasingly emotional, she said.
Rosario and Hedgepeth left The Thrill around 2:20 a.m. and returned to the apartment.
Read more When will Seth Jarvis return? Canes forward moves closer to lineup after surgery
Rosario said she does not remember getting upstairs to their second-floor apartment. She remembered waking in bed and vomiting into a trash can Hedgepeth placed beside her before moving to the bathroom, which she described as her “safe space.”
There, Rosario called and texted several people.
She felt “like a mess,” she testified, and like “my life was out of control.”
Around 4 a.m., she began texting Jordan McCrary, whom she had seen at The Thrill and had previously hooked up with. She wanted to go to his house as an escape and “have somebody that would be there for me,” she said.
Around 4:20 a.m., Rosario left the apartment and walked downstairs to wait for McCrary. She testified that Hedgepeth was in bed and that she told her she was going to McCrary’s. Rosario left the front door unlocked.
The next morning, Rosario tried unsuccessfully to reach Hedgepeth for a ride home. Another friend picked her up and drove her back to the apartment.
Inside, Rosario noticed drops of blood and a comforter pulled to the side of the bed. She moved it and saw Hedgepeth with a black eye, a black shirt pulled over her head and naked from the waist down, she testified.
Rosario called 911. The first officer who arrived went inside and then told her Hedgepeth was dead.
“I was in shock,” Rosario said, describing it as an “out-of-body experience” and a “nightmare.”
The next day, Rosario returned with a Chapel Hill police officer and pointed out things that appeared out of place, including a used tampon near the bed and a blue wine bottle in the kitchen.
She wrote a five-page statement, provided names of people she and Hedgepeth had been in contact with, and gave investigators her phone and laptop.
“I wanted to be helpful,” Rosario testified. “And I wanted to know what happened.”
Rosario soon moved home to New Jersey for a year before returning to UNC in the fall of 2013 and graduating in 2016, she testified.
She continued to cooperate with police over the years and responded whenever investigators contacted her.
She learned of Salguero Olivares’ arrest from a friend who saw the news, and Chapel Hill police called her soon afterward.
Rosario testified that she does not recognize Salguero Olivares, does not remember Hedgepeth ever mentioning him and does not recall him ever being inside their apartment.
Read more NC announces first flu death of 2026 season. Here’s when to get a flu shot
Her testimony is expected to resume Thursday at 9:30 a.m.
This story was originally published October 7, 2026 at 6:57 PM.